Value creates value

People got used to measure value in money.
Generally, I do not find it to be a bad idea, since the main purpose behind the invention of money was to find a carrier for value - at least this is the way I think of it.
In the above sense, money is just some sort of an abstraction that says 'skip characteristics, keep the value'.
Apparently, over the time the concept of money became so universal, that it can be applied to practically any aspect of being and this creates the strong illusion that money itself represents a value.
Intuitively one could say, that if money can become anything, gives us flexibility and freedom, it is best to have money rather than anything in particular.
One cannot eat money however.

I am brand new to Steemit and the main reason I came here for was to generate some additional income.
Initially, I thought I would just browse over the content other people provide, make funny comments, get upvoted and maybe post something from time to time.
I thought I would make income that way.
Ironically, instead of money, I found here the real value.

Once I stumbled upon an article I found particularly interesting
(I apologize for not providing any link to it, but at the time of reading I had no idea it would make any impact on me. Apparently I needed time for connecting the dots).

The author of the post I have read raised the issue of poverty and deliberated on the standard ways of approaching this condition.
In the course of the article not only she explained why commonly applied solutions are not effective, but she also proposed a different way of dealing with the issue and delivered a consistent way of argumentation on top of that.
The content she provided became the cornerstone for my thinking process and inspired me to write this post.

In a nutshell, the article she wrote beautifully developed the idea that stands behind the proverb ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.
The author explained that in order to deal with poverty, not only we have to provide temporary solutions to the problem, but we also need to equip people affected with the tools - giving them a chance to self-liberate from poverty.

Thinking about it, I realized that there is much more in the above concept then only an effective way of dealing with poverty (although it is extremely important subject).

I want you to consider the following example taken from my personal experience.
There was a time in my life, when I had a desire to become a good chess player. Funnily enough, I wanted to accomplish that, because playing chess seemed to be a good method for improving my analytical skills - it was important for me because at the time I was particularly interested in the field of logic.
I started to play chess.
I must admit it was not love at first sight, the beginning was painful and irritating, because not only I had to think a lot, but with each game my opponents kept proving me that my way of thinking was wrong.
I did not give up however and I kept playing.

After 12 years of playing, despite the fact I did not become a great chess player, I can tell you that chess made me to be quite a different man.
I became more focus on my tasks, began to control my emotions in a better fashion, became more imaginative, developed ability to act under pressure and overall I became a better decision maker.
On top of that I met plenty of great people, who became my friends and of course, among all those aspects I did improve my analytical skills.

All the benefits came because I started to use a tool that seemed to be a good way of dealing with a particular issue I was facing at some point of my life.
However, the reward of using the tool was far beyond my initial expectations.
Not only I managed to achieve my goal, but along the way I changed.
My mentality changed.

That story brings me to the following conclusions.
Being introduced to appropriate tools gives people an opportunity to create far beyond the initial purpose, because people not only accommodate ideas, but also have the power to connect them and utilize in new and often unique ways.
The remedy to many problems is not giving people easy solutions, instead give people tools so they could find their own solutions.
Things we do, people we encounter and events that we experience, all of that shape our identity in a way no money can buy.